I Thought I Was Starting Over

Healing Wildflower

Graduation didn’t feel like an ending.

It felt like release.

I was seventeen, exhausted, and completely unprepared for adulthood. I had survived school. I had survived addiction-fueled chaos. I had survived relationships that taught me how to disappear. But I had never been taught how to live.

No guidance.
No supervision.
No blueprint.

Just freedom and fear sitting side by side.

I moved in with my brother a week before I walked the stage and received my diploma. He’s my dad’s son. We lived about an hour away from my hometown. He let me stay so I could breathe. So I could get away from the mental and physical abuse. So I could try to become an adult without constantly bracing for impact.

That mattered.

Living with him felt like a pause button. Even if it was only from May to September.

For the first time, I was somewhere that wasn’t loud with chaos or fear. I noticed how much I liked drugs — how easily they pulled me in — and it scared me. So when I moved in with him, I made a decision.

I stopped using the way I had been.

I got sober.
I got a job.
I enrolled in online college — for the first time.

From the outside, it looked like progress. And in many ways, it was. I was trying. I wanted better. I just didn’t know how fragile that ground still was.

After a few weeks, I started going out with my brother.

He was a functioning alcoholic — working, showing up, holding life together just enough. We went to the bar Thursday through Saturday. He bought my drinks. I had no kids. No responsibilities. No real reason not to go.

And I had never been much of a drinker before.

That changed fast.

I drank until I was sick.
Until I threw up.
Until I blacked out.

Every time.

But I didn’t see it as a problem yet. I saw it as social. Normal. Temporary. Everyone around me drank like that. No one questioned it. And I didn’t have the language to question myself.

Still, something important happened during that season.

I learned two things.

The first:
I only degraded myself for men when I was on drugs or alcohol.

Sober me didn’t chase approval.
Sober me didn’t shrink.
Sober me didn’t abandon herself.

The second:
Drugs were not my only problem.

I just couldn’t see it yet.

Because what I was really struggling with wasn’t substances — it was regulation. I didn’t know how to exist inside my emotions without altering them. I didn’t know how to feel wanted without numbing. I didn’t know how to be alone without reaching for something.

Alcohol became the bridge.

It didn’t feel as dangerous.
It didn’t carry the same stigma.
It felt earned. Legal. Social.

But eventually, it wasn’t enough.

The nights grew heavier.
The numbness wore off faster.
And the part of me that always looked for connection — for intensity, for belonging — started looking elsewhere again.

That’s when I met him.

My third long-term relationship.
My first real hood love.

And everything shifted — again.

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🕊 Closing Prayer

God,
You saw me trying to build a life without tools.
You saw my effort — even when it was fragile.

Thank You for the seasons that gave me breathing room.
For the moments where I almost believed I was free.
And for staying close when I didn’t yet understand what I was really fighting.

Guide me gently into the next chapter —
even when I couldn’t see where my choices were leading.

Amen

XOXO, The Healing Wildflower

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